6/9/2022 – New York City
Today was a complete disaster, a shit-show of epic proportions. U.S. stocks plunged Thursday as angst grew on Wall Street over key inflation data due out Friday.
The S&P 500 tumbled 2.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 640 points, or 1.9%. The Nasdaq Composite slid 2.8.%. The greater share of losses came in the final hour of trading as selling accelerated into the end of a downbeat session.
Investors are bracing for the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Friday as they look for further clues on how aggressively the Federal Reserve will ramp up interest rates. May’s reading is projected to show inflation persisted in May. Consensus economists are looking for headline inflation to rise at an 8.3% annual rate for May — on par with April’s print — and by 5.9% excluding food and energy prices.
Downturn also followed data on the labor market that disappointed before the open and confirmation from the European Central Bank of its intention to raise interest rates next month.
Weekly filings for unemployment insurance totaled 229,000 last week, the most since January, and a sign of potential stress building in the labor market. Ahead of this data, all three major indexes were pointing to gains north of 0.4% at the open.
Oil prices were retreated slightly but held above $120 per barrel, and the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield inched higher to 3.06%, north of the 3% level the 10-year breached earlier this week for the first time since early May.
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